stultify

He puts the yawn into stultify, the stupefy into catatonia, stone-facedly delivering the exact same chords, licks, and nasal delivery for over three decades over a backbeat that would have lost the Boer War.

From Salon ● Jul. 11, 2012

But after a while Mr. Yeston’s tuneful feast begins to satiate and eventually stultify, and by the evening’s end it’s as if you’d eaten a whole buffet of pastry.

From New York Times ● Jul. 22, 2011

So when this cafeteria culture hits the big city, does the collision somehow stultify economic activity? Cities, after all, need people out on the sidewalks.

From New York Times ● Jul. 2, 2011

The reason is the feeling in jazz that if you print something, if you write down the notes, you will stultify the music.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 12, 2010

The way in which the ushers were compelled to stultify themselves was a standing joke at Mecklemburg House.

From A Hero of Romance by Richard Marsh

Students stultified by scripted curriculums and endless test prep.

From New York Times ● Mar. 14, 2024

In the last section, Elvis is stultified and oppressed, sapped of color and life, isolated in his “golden cage” at the International Hotel in Vegas.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2022

All these lessons leave me stultified; The hours in the day just drag along — I think they’ve multiplied!

From Washington Post ● Apr. 30, 2020

The stultified senators should distract themselves with dice cricket, a game beloved by indoorsy British children.

From Slate ● Jan. 23, 2020

Jenny's sensibility had not been stultified by these emotional ills, so that when he crossed her horizon, she loved him sanely without prejudice.

From Carnival by Compton MacKenzie

But although Waititi eventually reveals the darkness at his story’s center, before then he lacquers the film with a calculated gooeyness that’s stultifying before it becomes downright exasperating.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026

When I walked into the arcade, I experienced a feeling I’d stuffed down into my subconscious for decades: the stultifying awkwardness of a middle school dance.

From Slate ● Jun. 25, 2026

For Jews, the stultifying fact to be faced is that antisemitism has nothing to do with Jews.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 21, 2025

In Lebanon, the stultifying heat of summer is overlaid by a layer of anxiety.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2024

Predictably, Ernest found St. Olaf a stultifying place.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik